


five times

by raggirare



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aoba Jousai Kouji, Iwaizumi's Cousin Kouji, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:23:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6152101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raggirare/pseuds/raggirare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>fives times kouji and kentarou kissed, from kouji's first year until his third</p>
<p>(in which kouji is iwaizumi's cousin, still sucks at volleyball, and plays as the goalie for seijou's national-level soccer team)</p>
            </blockquote>





	five times

**Author's Note:**

> Written originally for Ninnie for RP stuff. She requested I publish it here so we can spread the KyouKou loves, because this pairing kills us. Please enjoy this hell with us.

> The _**First**_

It’s Hajime’s birthday, and most of the attendees are his teammates, but Kouji’s there as well because he’s family and he’s known by the volleyball club as it is and they all get on well enough. It’s a relaxing day on the beach with a barbecue and beach volleyball and beach soccer and water fights. They build sandcastles because they can, and bury a passed-out Matsukawa and turn him into a mermaid. They watch the sun go down beyond the water and watch the stars in the clear sky overhead and the third years reminisce about their younger years.

When they finally pull themselves off of the sand, it’s a few at a time. Hanamaki helps an unsteady and tired Mattsun home, and Kindaichi has to piggyback Kunimi where he’s fallen asleep on the sand. The rest of them linger for an hour or so more before a hand traces over Kouji’s back. Bleary eyes blink open to Hajime’s face just in front of him and it’s only then that he realizes he’d fallen asleep.

Yahaba and Watari, he discovers, had left at some point while he wasn’t paying attention, and it leaves him with his cousin and Oikawa and a surprisingly quiet Kyoutani. (A sand covered Kyoutani, Kouji discovers when they pass under a streetlight, and he wonders if maybe the second year had fallen asleep on the sand as well.)

They leave the third-years outside the Iwaizumi household, and Kouji promises his cousin to text once he’s home (because Hajime’s always been protective of his baby cousin). They bid their farewells, and he continues down the same street alongside a sluggish Kyoutani (because apparently they live in a similar direction and he’s never really noticed this before).

Nothing exciting happens. Nothing out of the ordinary. They don’t even speak to each other and if Kyoutani ever looks in his direction, Kouji doesn’t know. All he can think about is his bed waiting for him and the hot cocoa waiting for him on his bedside that his mother had messaged him about, and he only opens his mouth once he reaches the top of the small side street he lives down to say his own farewell.

But nothing comes out. He opens his mouth but there’s no words. And then he realizes why. A warmth on his wrist and something soft against his lips that tastes of salt and sand and a lingering taste of the cake they’d had for dessert. There are lips on his and he has no idea why, but it takes something else entirely for him to collect himself. A murmur of a name against his lips makes Kouji lift his hands and he gives a sharp forceful shove against the wing spiker’s chest, taking a step back in the same moment.

“I’m not Hajime.”

He turns away and begins to walk without looking back, hands buried in the pockets of his shorts, fingers curled tightly around his phone. And, as he pushes the front door of his house open, he tries not to think about the pain in his chest lingering from hearing his cousin’s name against his lips.

(Lips that he most certainly is not touching whenever he falls into his head.)

> The _**Second**_

Nothing is ever mentioned of that night. Kyoutani never brings it up, so Kouji lets it fade as a potential figment of his imagination, or a mistake of fatigue. He can’t for sure say that it really even happened, and that makes it even easier to forget and move on with his life.

It’s months before it resurfaces. Months in which he’s watched his cousin experience defeat at Shiratorizawa’s hands again in the inter-high and watched the volleyball club dig their heels in with determination for the Spring High. His own team has gone further in those months, reaching nationals (the fact they only make it two rounds in doesn’t worry him as much as it upsets the third years), and there’s been other lips on his with little issue. Softer lips, fuller, more gentle and unsure, but it’s a relationship that barely last the soccer season and didn’t survive the pre-nationals haul, but Kouji had been too in love with soccer to be heartbroken.

Post-Nationals means he gets a break of some sort, and he gets more free time, and one afternoon sees him off in search of his cousin (or any of the volleyball club senpais, really, because none of them are in the gym but there’s still lights on). He tries the clubroom next, because he needs to get something from the soccer clubroom anyway, and he peeks inside. He knows someone’s there, because the light is shining through the small window on the door, but the greeting he had planned to call falls silent on his lips.

Clubrooms are not comfortable places to sleep. He knows this from experience. So the feeling the rises in his gut he calls concern and nothing else, and Kouji invites himself into the room. He crouches beside the bench, one knee touches the floor, and it’s in every intention to wake the sleeping wing spiker, because a good kouhai needs to look out for his senpai. But his hand wavers, hesitates, and eventually stops altogether, hovering over Kyoutani’s shoulder. Dark eyes linger on the elder’s face, and it occurs to him how different he can look under the spell of relaxation.

Fingers brush gently over skin, tracing an invisible line over the other’s cheek with a ghostly touch. A twitch at the corner of lips pulls Kouji’s attention and eyes down, silent, waiting for something to happen. But nothing does. Kyoutani doesn’t stir, but the goalkeeper doesn’t do anything, either, hand hovering over skin just barely enough to touch it, eyes enraptured by lips that he knows he knows more than he should.

(It wasn’t a dream. It couldn’t have been a dream.)

Eyes meet eyes in wide shock, and the missing distance between them is suddenly apparently. Kouji freezes, a deer in the headlights, breath caught in his throat, lips a hair’s breadth from Kyoutani’s (in the process of moving away from a brief kiss his subconscious had pulled him into). A few seconds pass like hours, before his heart finally drops from his throat to his stomach. Quick reactions honed through years of sport aid him as he grabs his bag and pushes himself to his feet and, without so much as a glance behind, hurries out of the clubroom. He bypasses the soccer clubroom entirely and instead heads for the school gates and for home (or at least anywhere that isn’t wherever Kyoutani is).

> The _**Third**_

Kouji doesn’t go to the Spring High first day. He refuses. His own Spring High tournament had been the weekend before, so it’s not like he doesn’t have time, but he wakes up late in the day to a text message from his cousin. They’re playing Karasuno. He refuses to watch (refuses to pick between his best friend and his cousin, because he knows it’s not Shouyo that he’ll choose). So he stays home instead and tries to throw himself into homework, and when that doesn’t work he goes to the school grounds with his soccer ball in the basket of his bike (because his Spring High regional might be over, but he has another round of Nationals to prepare for).

The next text message breaks his heart and cements exactly why he had refused to go to the tournament. But he waits. He waits on the soccer ground, watching in the direction of the clubrooms, watching for the return of the van carrying his cousin’s team. He waits even after he sees it arrive, waits while the team debriefs, waits while they have their moment (and has a moment of his own to cry for his cousin as well) and then he keeps on waiting even longer, any idea of joining the team to comfort them long gone because it isn’t his place.

By the time Kouji stops waiting, the sun has set and it’s well past dark and he figures it’s about time to be getting home. His parents had already been told where he was, and his mother had agreed to set dinner aside for him, so it wasn’t as though there was much of a rush, so he takes his time. His journey back to his bike takes him past the gym and catches his attention, because the lights are on and the door is open and he can hear the unmistakeable sound of balls hitting a wooden floor.

And then he makes the mistake of entering the gym. His soccer ball falls from his hands to the floor, bouncing out of time to the stray ball that had rebounded off of his face before he had even gotten a chance to see who was in the gym. His balance wavers, his legs give way underneath him, and he lifts a hand to hold it against his face because his head is dizzy and the world is spinning and he doesn’t dare to open his eyes even when he hears the soles of shoes squeaking against the floor, first away from him and then closer until they stop right near his head. One eye risks opening, leaving Kouji face to face with a damp cloth. He takes it and presses it to his face, and he can only breathe a sigh of relief when he pulls it away again and there’s no blood. His head is still woozy, though, and looking up is difficult, so he takes his time and does it as carefully as possible, eyes and head lifting in time until he can make out a face.

“Senpai.” Kouji manages to get the word out, but he’s not sure how slurred his voice is. He can’t bring himself to choose an emotion to put into it, either, because the face looking down at him is familiar and yet not. He doesn’t know for sure what the lineup for the match had been, but he translates the look in Kyoutani’s eyes as an understanding that he, at least, had been on the court. The goalkeeper finds himself wanting to comfort him, and a hand reaches up, then another reaches down and it takes a rough grunt from the elder boy for Kouji to realize he’s falling again. A quick hand catches his head before his own moves to take it and use it as support to help him sit up properly again, even if lying down on the floor is probably a better idea right now.

“Watch where you’re going next time.”

The words barely get to leave Kyoutani’s mouth before Kouji gives the hand he’s still gripping a sharp tug and pulls him down. Not all the way, but close enough for him to be able to lean up and force their lips together. There’s nothing gentle about the act, and he winces as teeth click against teeth, and it’s brief and rushed but he doesn’t pull away entirely, doesn’t let the wing spiker pull away. Holds him in place and holds his gaze.

“There won’t be a next time,” his voice comes in a murmur but it doesn’t lack in confidence or conviction. “You’re going to destroy them next year. For Haji-nii and Oikawa-senpai, and Mattsun-senpai and Makki-senpai.” And Kouji knows full well that destroying ‘them’ means destroying his best friend, but he’s not concerned with that right now. He’s more concerned with the pain of his cousin, and his cousin’s friends, and the strange shift of emotion that he’s never seen before in the eyes right in front of his own now. “And then you’ll destroy what’s left of Shiratorizawa.”

Kouji’s head spins again and his grip on Kyoutani’s hand tightens and god, he’d forgotten how bad the after affects of a ball to the face can be. His forehead leans forward against the elder’s and his eyes fall shut for a moment as he tries to make the world stop spinning again.

“Got it?”

There’s no vocal response, just a gruff sound and then a gentle warmth against his lips again, and Kouji settles on blaming the unsteadiness of his head on the entire situation just so he can enjoy it without having to think about why things are happening the way they are.

> The **_Fourth_**

He choked and now he’s choking and the stench of blood is mixing with sweat and he feels like he’s drowning, trapped in a space that’s turned from heaven into hell, suffocating on his own tongue. Trembling fingers cling to dark hair, knuckles skinned and bleeding, the missing parts of his hands clinging to the dented door of his locker.

He’d managed to hold it together in bowing after the match and on the trip back and the weight hanging on the second year vice-captain’s shoulders had been obvious in everyone’s eyes, but Kouji had kept the bravest face he could manage. He’d hidden trembling hands in a debrief and schooled his breathing as even as he could to provide some sort of stability for his team, but as soon as he had been left alone, everything had fallen apart around him.

His fingers burned and his palms stung and even as he dug blunt fingernails into his scalp he could still feel the speeding brush of a ball flying past just out of reach, just brushing the tips of fingers in a sadistic taunt. Not just once. Not twice. Five times. Ninety minutes of back-and-forth, fighting to keep the score and even zero on both sides, only for it to all melt away in a penalty shootout as every single one of their opponents shots slipped past his grip (and their opponent’s goalkeeper stopped every single of theirs). The burning bled into his shoulder, a reminder of the hand that had rested there when the third-year captain had tried to reassure him that it wasn’t his fault. A reminder of the people he had let down. (They still had the Spring High, but the third years had already declared their retirement from the club regardless; he’d ruined their final chance.)

Trapped in his mind, Kouji quickly loses track of everything around him. The passing time, the drying blood trickling thin rivers down the backs of his hands, the sound of the clubroom door opening and then closing again, a weight sitting down on the bench beside him. He only registers the third year’s presence when a hand touches his shoulder and it jolts him back into reality. He stares, eyes wide and wet and red and swollen, as though he’s trying to figure out just what is going on. Eventually, though, Kyoutani’s face processes in his head, and whatever energy was keeping him upright disappears and he slumps in against the elder’s side. He doesn’t know how much the wing spiker knows, doesn’t care enough to ask, doesn’t have the energy even if he did care. Instead, he seeks out his own comfort, because god knows Kyoutani is no good at actually giving it on his own initiative.

Kouji doesn’t mind. He doesn’t need anything right now other than the silence and the warmth of the side against his own and the low sound of another’s breathing to help him try to regulate his own. Seconds bleed into minutes and the minutes stack up and almost an hour later finds fingertips brushing dried blood away from skin. Kouji’s eyes flutter open at the touch, but he doesn’t move. Not immediately.

And, when he does, it’s slow and tired and a lot more relaxed than he has been since the final whistle had blown. His fingers tremble even as they find purchase against the edge of a jaw and he pulls Kyoutani’s face towards him in the same moment he lifts his own head. The kiss is seeking, gentle and soft but gradually pushing firmer and firmer as he seeks for some sort of grounding. Something to keep him from disappearing into the depths of his own mind and personally imposed insanity, and though he winces when teeth graze his lower lip, he doesn’t pull away.

The second year only pulls away when he loses his breath entirely and he lets his forehead come to a rest against Kyoutani’s. His eyes fall closed and his breathing slows, and consciousness leaves him before his mind can process anything else.

> The _**Fifth**_

Three years disappear in a blink. At fifteen, the future seemed so far away. A distant dream of being free of high school and its restrictions, and when the day of his graduation finally rolls around, he finds himself wishing for the days of his first-year naivety. But with a Nationals tighter under his belt, an award for his goalkeeping talents, an offer from multiple universities trying to recruit his skills, he finds himself with a grin on his lips.

His friends are there, and his parents as well, and he even gets to see Shouyo and Izumi cheering him on, and Hajime makes the trip to see him as well, and even with one particular face missing, Kouji enjoys the day all the same. He’s tired by the afternoon but he hangs behind, the last of his duties for his soccer team still lingering, and he takes his time in emptying his locker in the clubroom.

Attention stays focused on the space in front of him even as the door behind him swings open and then clicks closed and a lock flicks into place. Arms slide around his waist from behind him and Kouji’s lips pull into a smile, leaning back into the warmth against his back.

“You’re late,” he teases, emptying his hands. One lays over one of the arms around him and the other reaches back, fingers brushing against the side of Kyoutani’s face. All he gets in response is a sharp exhale and a kiss to his palm, and it pulls a laugh from the younger’s lips. Kouji turns, then, in the arms still around him, so he can press a proper kiss to the elder’s lips.

One hand reaches back, searching to pull one of the arms free from his waist, and then the other searches his pocket, using kiss as a distraction to press a small object into the elder’s palm. He closes his fingers around it, holds Kyoutani’s hand in his own, and lets the kiss linger as long as he can stand it. A lingering kiss turns to a lingering touch, their foreheads pressing together long after the kiss has ended. A habit long engrained into Kouji’s muscle memory even as the height difference between them increased with his pubescent growth spurts.

“I told you I didn’t need this.” Words finally leave Kyoutani’s mouth after a few moments, the previous year’s graduate finally opening his palm to see the button that had been placed there. He had been expecting it, of course, because Kouji had been talking non-stop about it for weeks (bordering on months), but his actions betray his true intentions. Fingers close around the button again, and his free hand lifts, searching. It’s easy to find what he’s looking for. A bump under Kouji’s jacket, a leather cord around his neck. It’s a stupid tradition, Kyoutani’s still convinced of that, but he can’t deny the feeling twisting in his gut any time he thinks about the fact that his own second button has been hanging around Kouji’s neck since his own graduation a year ago.

(And he can’t deny the smile looking down at him as fingers lace with his own, or the smile that pulls onto his own lips at the giddy laugh tumbling from Kouji’s lips.)


End file.
